Pre vs. Post Death

[henryp]

I can't wrap my head around the idea that I care about what happens after I die, but once I die, I no longer care.  

The Orlando shooting, for example.  We are sad for those victims.  But none of them are unhappy with their current state of being dead.  So what was lost?  A hypothetical future.  But they only cared about the future when they were alive.  Now that they are dead, it isn't important to them.  So has their being shot really harmed them in any way outside of the 1 to 10 minutes of being terrified while it was ongoing?

I think the only victims of death may be the remaining living who experience loss from the dead no longer being around?  But the dead themselves are just fine.  

It's definitely a mind bender for me.  I care that my daughter has a long happy life, but once I die, she can get eaten by a bear the next day, and it won't matter to me.    But I would die to keep her from being eaten by that bear even though I know that my dying means I will no longer care that she isn't going to be eaten by a bear.  

Is the problem the inability to view oneself as temporary?  I guess the propagation of the species evolution stuff has us predisposed to looking at things beyond our own lives?  

What do you guys come up with when pondering this stuff?

[Spirian]

I think the only victims of death may be the remaining living who experience loss from the dead no longer being around?  But the dead themselves are just fine.  

DING! DING! DING! We have a winner!

[zebo-the-fat]

Hmmm... interesting, I never thought about it in that way

[RozKek]

Well, of course, our sorrow isn't about them suffering after death, it's was just very emotional, in some cases unexpected and unfortunate to lose someone for us, they're not suffering and our way of coping is doing what we do now. It's of course just a human reaction, a good one if we don't want to be like robots and/or emotionless. I see nothing bad in sorrowing to cope and get over it, the only problem is when the sorrow goes on for too long.

[brewer]

Want to keep on doing things after your death?

Trust!

[vorlon13]

Prior to death the shooting victims had hopes and dreams of a future with their friends. While dying, presumably in agony from the pain of the flesh rending ammunition, they would have had the realization possibly that future was not to be.

Orlando was different than most of the ones I've seen lost to AIDS, they had the time to experience Kubler-Ross's stages and many were in acceptance as they neared death. In the early days when someone got sick and died in a few hours/days those stages didn't occur. Some later on had time to plan their own exit differently than what the virus had in store for them.

What the shooter did to the survivors was hideous too, beyond hideous actually. I know personally what their friends and loved ones and families will experience in the decades to come and it weighs on me heavily knowing they didn't need to be facing this save for the actions of one deranged gunman.

I realize the individuals killed in Orlando are beyond harms reach now, but the community they were part of continues on, wounded and hurting, and those people are not ever far from my thoughts now, they've joined a dreadful fraternity I've been a member of since 1986 . . . .

[Gawdzilla]

I was dead for fourteen billion years and it didn't bother me a bit. The infinity ahead won't bother me either.

[henryp]

Well, of course, our sorrow isn't about them suffering after death, it's was just very emotional, in some cases unexpected and unfortunate to lose someone for us, they're not suffering and our way of coping is doing what we do now. It's of course just a human reaction, a good one if we don't want to be like robots and/or emotionless. I see nothing bad in sorrowing to cope and get over it, the only problem is when the sorrow goes on for too long.

If it's not about them, does the reaction make sense?  I don't respond as strongly as others to tragedy, but in the past I think "Oh, that's a bummer."  Because people only get one life to live, and losing that opportunity seems like a substantial loss.  But it's only a loss from the perspective of the living, which the people I'm supposedly mourning are not. 

To me, it seems like the focus tends to be on those killed, rather than those affected by their deaths.  I wonder if it's just framed that way so we don't feel like we're being self-centered?

...too sum up better, in regards to Orlando for example, nobody was saying "I can't believe this happened to me!" as a response to others being killed.

[Minimalist]

[vorlon13]

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows not . . . .